"Speaking for our company, and I am sure for all auto parts suppliers, we respectfully urge the members of this committee, and the Congress as a whole, to provide the financial support the automakers need at this critical time," Keith Wandell, then the president of Johnson Controls, said, warning that the failure of even one automobile company would "implode" the supply chain and lead to broad job losses.

Congress approved a bailout plan worth almost $80 billion for General Motors and Chrysler, saving the automakers and suppliers like Johnson Controls.

General Motors received money through a US-government bailout program. Photo: Andrew Harrer

By 2010, with its business back on track, Johnson Controls doubled the pay of Stephen Roell, then its chief executive, to more than $15 million.

Despite the federal government's rescue and hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks over the last several decades from states like Michigan and Wisconsin, Johnson Controls said on Monday it was renouncing its US corporate citizenship by selling itself to Tyco International, based in Ireland, a deal struck in large part to reduce its tax bill, which it said should drop by about $150 million annually.

In the last year, Pfizer said it was leaving for Ireland, as did Medtronic, the medical device maker. Coca-Cola's largest bottling company, after selling its domestic operations, is heading to Britain. (The company, Coca-Cola Enterprises, insists it isn't for tax reasons.)

In the last year, Pfizer, Medtronic and Coca-Cola's largest bottling company all moved to Britain. Photo: Scott Eisen

Until Washington lawmakers reform the tax code, we will continue to see an exodus of US companies from our shores in search of a lower tax rate. By my count, based on a series of conversations with investment bankers, there are probably at least another dozen deals of meaningful size in the pipeline. (Whether those deals will get to the point of a formal announcement, of course, remains unclear.)

The question is, what it will take for Congress to not only take notice but to pass legislation to thwart this steady corporate migration.

"I have a detailed and targeted plan to immediately put a stop to inversions and invest in the US, block deals like Johnson Controls and Tyco, and place an 'exit tax' on corporations that leave the country to lower their tax bill."

But we have reached a point in this debate where the rhetoric is wearing thin

Even Carl C. Icahn, the activist investor who has long pushed companies to consider cost-saving manoeuvres, has now begun to worry about the harmful effect of corporate inversions. He has begun waging a campaign in Washington to reform the corporate tax system.

"How will representatives and senators, with an election year approaching, explain to their constituents why they are out of work because their employers left the country, when it could so easily have been avoided?" he wrote on the op-ed page of The New York Times last month.

And consider this: Johnson Controls, currently based in Milwaukee, has aggressively sought and received a series of tax breaks and other deductions to do business in the United States. Between 1992 and 2009, the company received at least $149 million in tax breaks from Michigan alone.

Last year, Johnson Controls had to pay a $3.75 million penalty to Michigan after it received a $75 million tax break in exchange for creating 400 jobs at its Holland lithium ion plant.

The company fell short on the job creation, so it was forced to compensate the state and give up its tax-exempt status at the plant. In 2011, Johnson received a tax break from Kentucky in exchange for expanding its operations in the state, where it employs hundreds of workers.

At this point, it would be easy to cue the national anthem and argue about the need for corporate patriotism and loyalty to the United States.

But unfortunately, simply shaming companies that reduce their tax bill through these so-called inversion ​manoeuvres isn't a solution. And pushing for laws to bar companies from these deals seems increasingly quixotic.

Every time a new tax law is enacted, the lawyers and accountants find a way around it. Ultimately, the migration will stop only when it becomes more attractive for American companies to be American companies.